Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

For the first 23 years of her life, Suzy Becker was sure she would have at least two babies. Then, it took her fifteen more years to decide to go ahead and have just one. One Good Egg is the funny, warmhearted story of her journey to fertility and becoming a mom, illustrated throughout with hundreds of her clever and charming cartoons.

Suzy Becker had found professional success in her twenties, but the husband market was a different story. She started off by falling in love with a woman, but when that didn't work out she decided she had everything she needed — the home, the savings, the friends, family, and the gumption — to have a baby alone. At age thirty-nine, she joined the ranks of the 6 million women who need medical help to conceive. In One Good Egg, she chronicles her travels through the maze of fertility treatments, constantly considering and reconsidering how far she was willing to go, inwardly convinced none of it would ever work. She learned she was pregnant on her way to tape an essay for National Public Radio, and five months later married her true love. You cannot adequately prepare for certain realities, like giving birth or parenthood, but with One Good Egg, Suzy Becker provides the perfect companion for readers' own journeys to motherhood and beyond.

Review:

"Suzy Becker is a comic genius." Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home and Are You My Mother?

Review:

Synopsis:

For the first twenty-three years of her life, Suzy Becker was sure she would have at least two babies. Then it took her fifteen years to resolve to go ahead and have just one. One Good Egg is a funny, warmhearted, twenty-first century tale of making a family, illustrated with hundreds of her witty cartoons, clippings, charts, and pseudographs.

When Suzy Becker finally decided she had everything she needed — the home, the savings, the friends, the family, and the gumption — to have a baby alone, she was thirty-nine, which catapulted her into the ranks of the six million other American women who need medical help to conceive. In One Good Egg, she chronicles her travels through the maze of fertility treatments, considering and reconsidering how far she was willing to go and inwardly convinced none of it would ever work. Five months after she learned she was pregnant, Suzy got married.

While none of us can adequately plan or prepare for certain realities like giving birth or parenthood, Suzy Becker's One Good Egg reminds us we are not alone on our journeys.

About the Author

Author, artist, educator, and entrepreneur Suzy Becker began her career as an award-winning advertising copywriter, and then founded the Widget Factory, a greeting card company. She entered the world of books with what would become the internationally bestselling All I Need to Know I Learned from My Cat, and has since written and illustrated several award winning books for both children and adults including My Dog's the World's Best Dog; I Had Brain Surgery, What's Your Excuse?, Manny's Cows; Books Are for Reading; and Kids Make It Better. Her books, greeting cards, and works in print and TV advertising have earned her numerous design and writing awards. She lives with her family, a dog, and a formerly feral cat in central Massachusetts. Visit her Web site at www.suzybecker.com.

What Our Readers Are Saying

Average customer rating based on 1 comment:

Rachel Kramer Bussel, October 2, 2013 (view all comments by Rachel Kramer Bussel)
Suzy Becker wanted to have a baby...she was pretty sure. But as she reached her late 30's and is single, she isn't sure exactly how she's going to go about it. Just as she falls in love with her best (female) friend, she finds a willing donor, her old friend Steve...who's in Australia. With this unique set of circumstances, Becker chronicles her efforts to get pregnant, with many ups and downs. While much of the details here are medical and scientific, Becker is never esoteric. She breaks down what's happening and what she was feeling and her drawings add levity, from Ziggy the Zygote to a quite apt conversation with her donor, where there's an elephant in the room (drawn sitting at the table with them). She's hopeful yet practical, and to me the main event here is less her eventual pregnancy as her coming to terms with the fact that it might not happen; when she's faced with the phrase "achieving pregnancy" she counters with a handwritten note that "I am not an underachiever--it happens or it doesn't." These are the small outbursts of emotion that are woven into the fabric of this memoir that make it so touching. Clearly, Becker wants to be a mother, but there's an evenhanded approach here, even when she's reluctantly trying meditation. She also offers little tidbits of information about the conception process, both facts and conventional (and sometimes not so conventional) wisdom. Even though this is Becker's very personal story, her forthrightness about her fears and uncertainties and eventual success in having a baby are counter to all the dire scary warnings bandied about often in the media. She doesn't sugarcoat (see "A Bad Chapter"), but adds humor that is greatly enhanced by her drawings.

"Synopsis"
by Netread,
For the first twenty-three years of her life, Suzy Becker was sure she would have at least two babies. Then it took her fifteen years to resolve to go ahead and have just one. One Good Egg is a funny, warmhearted, twenty-first century tale of making a family, illustrated with hundreds of her witty cartoons, clippings, charts, and pseudographs.

When Suzy Becker finally decided she had everything she needed — the home, the savings, the friends, the family, and the gumption — to have a baby alone, she was thirty-nine, which catapulted her into the ranks of the six million other American women who need medical help to conceive. In One Good Egg, she chronicles her travels through the maze of fertility treatments, considering and reconsidering how far she was willing to go and inwardly convinced none of it would ever work. Five months after she learned she was pregnant, Suzy got married.

While none of us can adequately plan or prepare for certain realities like giving birth or parenthood, Suzy Becker's One Good Egg reminds us we are not alone on our journeys.

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